Ultimately, if this serves as a common platform for all green lovers to share thoughts, change will definitely happen

The community feature will be ready in 10-15 days as there are still a lot of issues to be handled. Meanwhile, I will be providing updates daily here.

During our past 7 months of operation, many people had expressed their intention to contribute/get involved in some way. However, we just couldn’t figure out how to allow them do that. In fact, we haven’t figured it out even now. As a result, the following idea. The idea is called open business.

• Sapgreen will be an open platform for everyone to discuss about the environment.
• Just register with us and you will be able to start a new article / write a blog.
• There will be a core group who will act as moderators and facilitators. This is only for taking care of offline issues such as tree-planting, finances, website administration etc.
• The most happening environmental news and blogs will be published/linked here.

That’s all we have thought of at the moment. More inputs from you will be really helpful.

We hope to release all the features we’ve mentioned above by the end of this week.

Carbon Footprint

The term “carbon footprint” can be applied in more sense than one. The actual meaning depends on the context in which it is used. Some of the commonly used definitions for quantitative discussions are:

• Carbon footprint is the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) attributable to the actions of an individual (mainly because of their energy use) over a period of one year. For example, you may have a carbon footprint of about 3 tonnes CO2/year owing to your home use, automobile fuel and other such activities.
• Carbon footprint can be seen as the total amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted over the full life cycle of a product or service. For example, an ipod nano has 31kg carbon footprint by virtue of the energy used for its production.

In a more general sense, carbon footprint is a “measure of the impact human activities have on the environment in terms of the amount of green house gases produced, measured in units of carbon dioxide”. It is meant to be useful for individuals and organizations to conceptualize their personal (or organizational) impact in contributing to global warming.
As the issue of global warming and climate change becomes more and more important, it becomes necessary that we calculate the extent to which each human activity is responsible for the CO2 emissions. Carbon footprint is the result of this calculation.

Reduce your footprint

Following are a few tips to reduce your carbon footprint sorted category-wise.

Carbon from transport:

Keep tires properly inflated
Car pooling
Use a bicycle for short distances.
If you own a car and a motorbike, use the latter over the car wherever possible.
Switch off your vehicle at a traffic light
Replace old or worn out air filters
If possible, fit your vehicle with an LPG kit.

Carbon at home:

Turn lights off when not in use
Change from incandescent lighting to CFL (Compact Fluorescent Lamps) or LED
Reduce red meat consumption
Recycle whatever you can, including cell phones
Turn off appliances at the wall when not in use. For example, the cell phone adapter.
Buy locally grown food whenever possible so that you discourage unnecessary transportation of food

Carbon at business:

Reduce paper consumption. Use electronic documents instead.
Reduce flights wherever possible. Instead of personally flying for a meeting, try video conferencing.
Install more doors and keep windows closed to avoid AC leakage.
A rainwater harvesting facility at your office could save a lot of energy required for pumping water.
Switch off computers and lights at non-working hours
Plant trees around the office to cut on air-conditioning bills

Offset your footprint:

Offsetting your carbon emissions remains an important gesture and planting of trees is a wonderful way to do so.
The first thing to bear in mind about buying trees as carbon offsets are that they should be considered as a last resort option. Surprised to hear this from us? Our intention is that you try to reduce your carbon emissions as far as possible and then offset the remaining through trees.
Try everything you can to reduce your carbon emissions first, such as the use of CFL bulbs or even LED’s for lighting; efficient use of water heaters and reducing meat consumption - there’s so much you can do that can actually save you money while benefiting the environment.
Having reduced your carbon footprint as much as possible, now it’s time to offset what you can’t. Planting trees are the best way to do this.
Another reason for planting trees is that we have wiped out so many forests in the past 200 years of industrial age that there are only three large ancient intact forests left around the world. One in Brazil, the second in Canada and the third in Russia. The Indian region does not have any large intact forest left except for some small patches here and there.

However, we now have understood that there is no such thing as “corporate style”. The only truth is that we are a lot poorer in terms of trees than we were before the industrial revolution. The truth cannot be told in any particular “corporate style”. In any case, for record sake, I wanted to keep the old writeup. Here is how it was:

Companies around the world are responding to climate change in every possible way. The global scenario is fast changing. New requirements are being made mandatory in many nations to tackle the problem of global warming. The Kyoto protocol is a global initiative to make measures on climate change more accountable.

Every company and individual has a carbon footprint, whether you have a manufacturing plant or an IT service company. For a global company it becomes increasingly necessary to reduce their carbon footprint in all possible ways. It is equally important to spread the message of carbon offsetting among the employees.

What is in it for you?

• A number of commercial factors make it worthwhile to put action on climate change at the center of a company’s long-term objectives:
• The society is changing and is considering the environmental and climate change issues very seriously. Companies which act in this direction are considered as responsible companies by the society.
• Legislation are slowly coming in to tackle the environmental issues and the pressure on companies is likely to get tighter. As a result, environmental costs would represent a real business cost.
• In the years to come, companies which have strategic environment management programmes will appeal to investors as strongly future focused companies.
• We believe that working to promote environmental and social sustainability is good business practice. We also believe that even you would have the same ethos and hence we would ask you to partner us in improving the state of the environment.

What we offer?
Sapgreen’s vision is to provide simple, yet accountable green solution to the corporates in India. Our practices make it easy to incorporate clean environmentally friendly practices without affecting the normal operations of your company. The green merchandising solution is a great way to incorporate green practices among employees and clients. Further more we have a great way to establish your brand in the city you operate in a green way. For customizing our solutions for your company get in touch with us at sapg...@sapgreen.com

Gifting a tree is easy. It can be just as personal as giving a bunch of flowers. Here though, the tree lives on forever.

1. Lets say, your friend’s birthday is a few days from now.

2. Click on “Plant a tree” tab anywhere on our site.

3. You will be immediately taken to our payment window.

4. If you would like to send a card to your friend, let us know his address, day to send the card etc. We will take care of the rest.

5. It costs only Rs.300 to plant a tree and see it growing. We will plant it in a public park for you, water it and look after it until it becomes big enough to take care of itself.

6. If you want updates on your tree periodically through mail, tick on “Status mails”. We will then send you email updates on the tree, its condition, height etc once in 6 months. If you want mail to be delivered to your home instead, you can opt for that also (We discourage paper usage though).

7. As soon as you have paid us, we will send you a “receipt of payment” mail.

8. We will immediately process your request and send the tree-gift-card to the address you have mentioned. We will also send you the “planting ID” using which you can know the status of your tree. The planting ID card you receive will also have the address of your tree so that you can visit your tree personally any time you like.

9. Know when and where your tree will be planted in “Find my tree” tab. Every week we update the information regarding where we plant in “Find my tree” section.

10. For the time till the tree is self-sustainable, it is our responsibility to look after it. You can check the status of the tree anytime during this period either through the “Find my tree” section or by directly visiting the site.

Please note:

* Tree-Gift-Card will be sent by normal post from Mysore. Normal postal delivery time applies.

* Trees will be planted in public spaces and hence will be public property. The credit of planting though goes to you, the tree-giver, the one who has planted it.

* Cheques and DD payments are also accepted. All procedures remain same. Instead of opting for credit card, enter cheque/DD. Tree-Gift-Card will be sent based on cheque/DD realization. So, a finite delay is involved in this case.

Ashwin Upadhyay and Anilkumar, quit their plum jobs with an MNC in the Capital and have returned to Mysore with the aim of making it greener……..

2. News covering our inauguration program: “Sapgreen activities begin tomorrow”, The Hindu, Sunday, Apr 06, 2008

The campaign for increasing the green cover of Mysore will a boost with Sapgreen, an initiative to partner public, government, corporates and tourists to promote afforestation, all set for inauguration here………

3. Business standard coverage: “Software engineers turn green”, Business Standard, Wednesday, Apr 30, 2008

‘Say it with saplings’ has been the business model for two young software engineers from Mysore. They formally launched their venture, Enlen Marketing and Renewable Energy Systems Pvt Ltd, with an offbeat tree planting ceremony at a park in the Vijayanagar 2nd Stage here………

4. Regional Language coverage (Kannada Daily): “Keelimane Kai, Sasi Paalanegoo Sai”, Prajavani, Sunday, Apr 06, 2008

1. How is the power situation in your village?
Ans: During summers, we experience more than 12 hours of power outages but now we have just 2-3 hour of outages.
2. So, what do you use at night for lighting when there is a power outage?
Ans: During nights, we don’t have that many power-cuts. Even if it is there, it is only for an hour or two.
The villagers it seemed never cared much about the loss of power for 1 or 2 hours.
3. How about a solar light for your home?
Ans: The cost would be too much for us. Moreover, we can just use a standard lead-acid battery for charging when there is power. So, why do we need to buy an extra solar panel?

Although a lot of subsidies are provided to reduce solar panel costs, the reality is that grid electricity is also heavily subsidised in villages. The time for ROI just doesn’t justify the costs involved in buying a solar panel. Moreover, villagers don’t really care about ROI and stuff. What matters is the initial investment amount involved.
To summarize, solar lighting is not a real necessity in villages which are electrified. Power outages in the grid do not justify buying solar panels (at least at its present costs). A good, cheap battery management system would have a lot of buyers though.
And there was more to learn about rural people. They expect product warranty. They expect the product to be as good as the products in the city. They expect products to be comparable in prices to even chinese products. They expect high value for low prices. They ask for suggestions from fellow villagers before deciding on a product (so unlike city people).
You meet these demands and you have a winning product. To understand the bottom of the pyramid, you got to see it for real.

NEST: Another solar company which innovated in making a smaller version of CFL lantern making it more affordable. A lantern just Rs.1200 thereby making it much more affordable to the poorest of the poor. The company sold 50000 lamps and now plans to sell it in African countries as well. Won the Ashden award once.

Looking at these companies, I get hope. Business can co-exist with environment. Business can co-exist with people. No business model is not impossible.

I, personally however didn’t stop blogging and have been fairly regular at livejournal. Our work too had a different direction apart from trees and we were concentrating more on that. Being an electronics engineer, new technology never fails to interest me. Not the Ipod type of technology. Rather, its the advancement in basic technologies that is more interesting. The incandescant bulb was created in 1879 and the technology remained the same for more than a century. It is only recently that CFLs began replacing the bulb. Now, even CFL bulbs are on the verge of getting replaced by the semiconductor revolution. LED or Light emitting Diode is one of the most efficient types of light source. The LED delivers much greater brightness and consumes just a fraction of the power required by conventional light bulbs. Furthermore, LEDs last almost for a lifetime. Even under adverse conditions, you can expect LEDs to last for at least 6-10 years. Compare that with an incandescant bulb that lasts for a few months or a CFL which lasts for 2-3 years. The only drawback with LED as of now is the relatively higher cost. The payback time (as compared to CFL bulbs) in terms of reduced electricity bills is 2-3 years. However the payback in terms of reduced carbon emissions is immense.

Even more important are the benefits LEDs offer when combined with solar technology. LEDs consume less power and hence a smaller sized solar panel is sufficient to power it. The cost of the LED is more than offset by the savings in the solar panel. A solar enabled LED home lighting system would thus mean a light source with minimal maintenance and minimal recurring cost for a lifetime. We have been working on this technology for a while now and it looks ever more promising. I will keep this blog updated on the happenings.